Off Duty Streaking
by Takianna
Summary: Written for the Captain Rex Fan Club challenge on Deviant Art. It was supposed to be what would clones do on their down time?


"You gonna eat that?" Cody asked stabbing his fork into a piece of meat which was still residing on Rex's plate. Well so much for that getting into his mouth, Rex thought. Cody always knew when to show up and steal food.

"Go ahead," Rex said pushing the plate closer to Cody. Cody didn't really chew, Rex thought, because he seemed to have the piece of meat eaten before Rex even blinked his eyes.

They had been stuck on the cruiser for far too long. The boys were all getting restless. In the past three days, Rex had broken up six fights in the mess hall, a group of rowdy clones who had decided to drink too much and run around half naked and three pairs of clones who were doing things that clones shouldn't be doing without a woman present. It was a fact, they all needed to shoot something and soon or the whole cruiser would be overrun with men who just didn't have anything else to do and had destruction on their minds.

"You on watch again tonight?" Cody asked after he had finished off all the blue milk that Rex had on his tray. So much for getting anything to drink either, Rex grumbled in his head.

"I'm not," Rex said. He had volunteered to be on watch most nights. There just wasn't anything else to keep him from the boredom that had overtaken the other clones. Tonight was different though because he had been asked, no forced, by General Skywalker to finally take a night off and get some sleep. Rex didn't want to get some sleep. He wanted to be busy so that the constant sameness of this trolling mission wouldn't get to him. He'd seen people go crazy from this kind of thing before and it wasn't pretty!

"So I think you should come with a couple of us," Cody remarked off hand.

"No," Rex said knowing that anything Cody was involved in would surely lead to trouble. The kind of trouble that would only get Rex the kind of reputation that Cody was known to have.

"C'mon," Cody pushed. "You never spend time with the boys. You're too busy being a good solider. It would do you good. Get that chip off your shoulder."

Rex gave Cody a glare across the table. "What chip on my shoulder?" he growled.

"Oh, hit close to home, I guess," Cody laughed standing up. "If you want to come by, you know where my quarters are. Don't be the one clone who doesn't enjoy this time on the ship when battle is far from our minds."

Cody stalked away and Rex sat, arms crossed his chest in a huff. He was not content with staying on the ship. There was a reason the clones got rowdy. It's because they were meant for fighting. Not the machines of the Separatists, but they needed to get into the field and at least cause some damage. Otherwise they were going to tear the ship apart rivet by rivet.

Captain Rex stood, picked up his helmet and left the mess hall. Walking through the halls he passed several clones who acknowledged him in various ways as was appropriate to his rank and their rank. He was lost in thought. Wondering what he would do for the night. He had read almost every single manual that he could get his hands on and there really wasn't anything to listen to on the holoband, if they could even get reception in deep space.

His feet took him to his quarters while his mind pondered other things. Quickly he opened the door and entered, throwing his helmet on the cot. He stripped from his armor and changed into his fatigues. Looking around Rex made the decision to go and see what the rest of the men were up to. If he didn't like what he saw he would leave.

"DRINK, DRINK, DRINK!" a chorus of rather inebriated clones shouted at the top of their lungs. Rex looked again at the helmet half filled with Corellian Ale and thought he heard his stomach protesting, but it was hard to hear over all the noise. This was the third time he had lost at some game called "bucket of booze." For some reason he couldn't figure out the rules, or maybe his drink fogged brain didn't care anymore because when you lost, you got to drink more.

Lifting the helmet, everyone cheered as Rex poured the liquor at least towards his mouth, but most of it just spilled down his already soaked fatigue shirt and onto the deck plating around his feet. Turning the empty helmet over, Rex slammed it back on the table and a chorus of cheers erupted again from the group. He raised his hands over his head and pumped them with an enthusiasm that only drinking could bring about.

"Wht nowwwww?" Rex slurred looking around at the clones.

"Oh, we should go streaking," one of them shouted to the happiness of the rest of the group.

"Wait...wht?" Rex asked shaking his head. He had no idea what they were talking about. He tried to stand but the wet deck plating made his boots slip out from under him and he fell with a huge thud. Rex erupted in laughter and the group joined in, some holding their sides and others just bent over in laughter.

"Shhhh!" Rex said trying to calm himself and the others down. Finally he half crawled, half lifted himself back to sitting and then standing on unsure feet.

"STREAKING! STREAKING! STREAKING!" they all began to shout again in a chorus of drunken exuberance. Rex pumped his arms over his head joining in with the shouts. Whatever it was it sounded really fun when a whole group started chanting it.

Several clones in the group were stripping their fatigues off and flinging them every which direction creating a rain of clothing around the room. Rex joined in pulling his shirt over his head and throwing it then pulling his boots and pants off.

"What you have to do," another clone said to Rex conspiratorially, " is streak through the corridors. I hope someone is having a briefing!"

With thunderous yells, the group exited the small room where they were. A large group of naked clones streamed into the hallway of the ship, running at a leisurely jog towards the aft section where the bridge was located. Rex shoved his way towards the front leading the pack towards the bridge. He whooped and hollered along with them as they finally reached the bridge.

It all happened so fast, that Rex wasn't sure what had actually happened, but suddenly he was screeching across the deck plating on his stomach. He could feel, but didn't care about it, the skin starting to redden where he was getting burned from the friction. Actually it passed through his head that he couldn't believe he could scoot that far without clothes on.

When he finally came to a stop, he looked up.

"General Skywalker," Rex said and then burst into uncontrollable laughter which echoed throughout the bridge. He heard several of the other clones running by and laughing along with him. They were leaving him behind though because although he was a brother in need, he was about to get the dressing down of his life and they wanted no part of it.

His head was heavy and his stomach was threatening to make a mess all over the deck of his quarters. Rex struggled to sit up on his cot, but as he started to rise from the bed, the contents of his stomach were at his throat and he grabbed a spare helmet, heaving into it.

That was going to take some cleaning if it was ever going to be used again.

"CAPTAIN REX," the commlink in his quarters screeched. Rex couldn't get to the button quick enough to stop the incessant beeping from ringing in his head.

"What?" Rex snapped his voice scratchy.

"Good morning," Commander Cody said from the other end. "It's time to report for duty."

Rex thought that he could somehow hear a smile in Cody's voice and he didn't like that the Commander had set him up.

"I'm not coming today," Rex said. Calling in sick for a clone was not an option. You went to your post or you were dead. Today, Rex wanted to be dead.

"Get to the medical bay," Cody said. "And for the force's sake, put some clothes on."

Rex looked down at his body. He was naked with a rather large red streak that he couldn't explain. It was looking like a rough morning. Gathering his armor quickly, he stepped into his undersuit and headed towards the medical bay. Surely they would have something to cure this terrible pounding in his head or he would take his blaster and cure it himself.


End file.
